A/N: Fire here~ I live on reviews and constructive feedback.
Please enjoy!
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i. a breath of air
Too long. It's been too long since he's looked and actually seen the sun. Too long since the flowers had been individual, not one lumpy, large mass. Everything is black and white, but it is the shades of grey that concern him the most.
It feels like he's missing something, but it's been so long that he can't remember what it is anymore. He used to know, but now it's gone.
The missing link is strangling him alive.
ii. stirring sands
He's going blind. That doesn't concern him; after all, he stopped living a long time ago. But his brother still lives. Sooner or later, Sasuke is going to find him, kill him, and Itachi has to be alive when that happened. Not only that, he has to fight Sasuke. He has to be strong, strong enough to put up a struggle before the blade runs through his heart.
It was the least his brother deserved.
So one day, he and Kisame set out, silently, and kidnap a kunouichi renowned for her healing abilities. She is stubborn and fierce, unrelenting in her attempted escapes. When he asks her to heal his eyes, she bluntly refuses. She would rather die then help the enemy.
But it is when he collapses after a mission, dying, that she finally cracks. She beats back death with a flaming torch and resuscitates him, wondering why she cares.
A week later, she agrees to his request.
iii. torn threads
"…How long have your eyes been troubling you?" Quiet. Almost gentle. He wonders where her fiery temper has gone, the image of a spitting vixen still bright in his mind.
"…Ever since I activated the Mankyou."
"That's…that's almost ten years," she whispers, almost unbelievingly. He does not reply. These healing sessions are strictly professional, and it has taken a long time until he felt comfortable enough to relax his guard under her hands.
She continues to heal him. In the middle of the session, though, her chakra suddenly turns sharp. Wrong. He shoots up as fast as lightning, kunai in hand, but the damage has already been done. The chakra still lingering in his eyes severs part of his optic nerve, and excruciating pain erupts in his head, easily three times greater then from the strain of using amaratetsu.
He wants to beat her, to kill her, to mutilate her on a stick and roast her over a fire. Anything for revenge, so she can feel his fury, know that she has crossed the path of Uchiha Itachi. Pay a price because she has ruined his plans, his every move for an entire ten years completely wasted.
But he doesn't. Because taking revenge would make him no better then Madara, who set the Kyuubi on Konoha. It would be illogical. And though he has nothing but spite for Konoha's council, he has nothing against the village itself.
She hails from the village. The village, for which he slaughtered his whole family for, who because of this survives blissfully day to day. He did it to save lives. Lives like hers.
No. He won't kill her, because that would be akin to spitting on his clan's grave. So he leaves her there, stunned at his lack of reaction.
iv. a link
Two weeks. Fourteen silent days as he makes the transition from fuzzy shadows to complete darkness. His ninja awareness is the only thing that keeps him alive these days, but he's severely weakened. He even stumbles when there's something on the floor, and his hands are permanently attached to the walls of the base, acting as guides through the empty corridors.
Despite this, he still trains. She can see him outside her barred window, the only source of light in her cell – as he futilely reacquaints himself with his surroundings, learning to predict an enemy's movement by sound alone.
It is one of these days, exhausted by a day of fruitless training; he trails back into the base, through the hallways, past the room they hold her in. His almost hesitant shuffling makes her open her eyes, and she keeps her breaths steady as if she's still asleep.
She watches as the once proud and dignified shinobi is reduced to careful, audible steps, the common crimson now faded to dark, weary onyx. And something in her breaks at the sight - she was the one responsible for this.
A medic. A medic who broke the Hippocratic Oath by harming a patient. That usually would have been enough to throw her out of the hospital. But healing him otherwise would have been considered treason.
No. No. No. She curls up into a ball, the repercussions of her actions spinning in her head.
Worse, Itachi had not even laid a hand on her in retribution.
v. silent dream
"I-I'm sorry." Silence. "I'll heal your eyes again. For real this time." The figure pauses while walking, sightless eyes turning toward the direction of her voice. Something clenches inside her.
"Why should I trust you, Kunouichi?" His voice is quiet, reserved, but holds a trickling of menace in them.
"Because I…" She trails off. "No. You don't have any reason to trust me," she finishes softly. Any resemblance of trust had been shattered the moment she cut off his eyesight. Head dropping, she makes a move to turn around, resuming her watch from the window.
"…I just wanted to amend my mistake. It…it wasn't right to take away your sight, even through it would have benefited Konoha.
"…I'm sorry," she finishes in an undertone. She doesn't dare to turn around to see his reaction. She can't bear to see the eyes she promised to heal. An empty promise.
"...one will always make sacrifices," he finally says before leaving.
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Later, when Kisame comes over with her quota of food, she looks up.
"Tell Itachi…my offer still stands."
He makes an ambiguous grunt before exiting the premises.
That night, her dreams are filled with shades of grey.
vi. a token
He comes back to her cell two days later. His movements have improved, but they are shaky compared to his previous lithe grace. Her heart pounds with guilt as he lies down on the uncomfortable cot she had been given at the start of her imprisonment. He is tense, noticeably more then when they had originally started.
Swallowing back everything – her unease, her guilt, her conscience, emotions, and loyalty to Konoha, she begins.
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Three months later.
She finishes her probing with a caressing hand, something that she wouldn't have dared to do when she first met him.
"…it's all good. You can remove it now." When he reaches behind his head, she sputters "Wait – I can take it off for you – if you don't mind," she finishes hastily. He fixes his head where her voice is coming from, as if considering her proposition. Her face fills with nervous apprehension.
After a minute, he slowly nods, sitting up so she can have better access to the blindfold. The subliminal trust in the simple gesture very nearly takes her breath away. Taking care to make excess noise, she moves closer, letting him know her exact location. Her hands settle into his hair, fingers making quick work of the cloth knotted in the back. The material falls away, revealing sooty eyelashes and high cheekbones. Holding her breath, she watches as his eyes slowly open.
At first, it is blurry. Then his eyes adjust to the limited light, and he sees her properly for the first time.
She looks almost hesitant, shy. Her face is smooth, it's structure deceivingly delicate. She wouldn't be considered pretty, he thinks, before deciding that her face is rather plain. Average. Then his vision sharpens, and his breath catches in his chest. Her hair…
Something fades in and out as he attempts to focus, and the missing element slides into place. Pink. For the first time in a long interlude, he remembers color. Color, which had no meaning or purpose, but simply distracted. His gaze wanders to her eyes, and he marvels at the color, the way they were reminiscent of faintly glowing jewels.
Almost without meaning to, his hand leans toward her and grasps a lock of her hair. He pulls it closer, studying the individual strands. The detail amazes him to no end, having lived ten years with deteriorating vision. It's been too long since he's been able to really see.
Sakura is blushing faintly, he notes with a distracted visage. However, he pays it no mind as he continues to survey his newfound surroundings.
"Itachi?" He pauses his perusal to face her once more. "Is…everything functioning as it should?"
He takes a moment to shift through the stages of his sharingan, red whirls taking up his face momentarily. He nods. Acknowledging her with a sweep of his newly healed eyes, he stands, making his way out the cell door.
"Sakura" he finally murmurs, "…Thank you." He gives her one last glimpse before disappearing into a flock of crows.
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Alone, she curls back into a ball and stares at the space he used to occupy. She cannot decide if her efforts have yielded a positive result.
The sickening familiar words continue to echo inside her head.
"Thank you."
vii. if
The amount of information she can bring back to Konoha is immense. Granted, the only area of the base she ever sees is the confines of her own room, but the secrets of the sharingan is practically in her hands.
"When are you going to let me go?" It has been four months in total. One month of uncertainty, three months of healing. "They're probably still looking for me, even now."
"No."
"Why?"
"…you know too much."
"All I've learned is some things about the sharingan," she protests. "There's only two of you left, so why bother?" She slows down a moment before continuing "either way, you're going to let Sasuke kill you. And he doesn't even have the Mankyou, so my data is practically useless!
"…"
"Please. My friends need me. Konoha needs me."
There is a tense silence following her plead. He mulls over her argument before answering, slowly.
"…very well. I will release you if-" his voice breaks off, as if remembering something. His entire form stiffens for a moment, and then relaxes. Almost deliberately.
He sweeps out of the room without another word.
viii. fading away
Itachi visits her daily, under the pretense of asking her to check up on his eyes. She does, wearily. Afterwards, they talk, but it is never longer then an hour. She learns that asking for her freedom is useless, and that Itachi is surprisingly well-cultured.
Soon, however, he leaves on a mission.
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One week passes without human contact.
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When he arrives back at the Akatsuki base, the first thing he does is seek out the prisoner of almost five months. She heals him, her touch warm and comforting, but her demeanor is sluggish and tired. It takes another two days for her to waken from her stupor, and another for her to smile.
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The Akatsuki set out once more to capture the hachibi. It takes a month.
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One month without a single word. Her imprisonment passes day by day, but the scratches in the wall have ceased to matter.
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She's fading, he realizes one day. She's falling into an aura of depression, giving up any hopes to return. Their hour long conversations serve as the only stimulant she has in this dark place, and in the absence of them she slowly withers. She's a flower, he thinks, she's not meant to survive with only a glimpse of the sun.
He doesn't want to let her go.
Her smiles have become important to him, somehow. But with Sasuke on the horizon, he is determined to eliminate all weaknesses.
So he cuts her loose one day, ignoring her shocked expression, those wide green eyes and the way she hastily ties back her dull pink hair in preparation to leave. He transports them far away from the base, landing them on a thick oak branch in the middle of a forest. He silently hands her a pack and studiously ignores all of her questions. When she punches him – answer me damnit – he calmly catches her fist in his hand. There is no flicker of chakra between her fingers, and no inhuman strength behind the attack to shatter his bones.
She is glaring at him, but it melts away after a few seconds. Her eyes are apprehensive, and struck with confusion and a faint longing.
He gently presses his lips to her forehead, and then he is gone.
ix. aesthetic lives
When she finally arrives at her destination, there is a flurry of activity. He friends bombard with questions, concerns, affection – but she demands to see the Hokage.
There, she reveals all the information she has gathered, along with a summary of her captivity. But she isn't done.
"Shishou, I need to know. It doesn't make sense. The Itachi who killed the clan and the Itachi I met were different." Pause. "What have you been hiding?"
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When she learns the truth behind the massacre, she slumps to the ground, shaken. And suddenly she wishes that she was back at the base, captive, with Itachi next to her.
Anything to stop him from throwing his life away.
x. fractured circles
Sooner or later, the fated clash between the Uchiha brothers comes to an end.
Itachi is pronounced dead.
Sasuke comes home in bandages. Sakura is assigned as his caretaker, and they exist together in silence. She heals his wounds, makes his meals, and keeps his home clean. But the house is still too quiet, too lonely. She feels like she lives in a ghost town.
"I know the truth behind the massacre," she says one day. It is early spring; early enough that the snow hasn't started to melt yet. The windows are still dusty from the long years, but a trickle of light still manages to filter through, making the room a bit brighter.
"…so do I," he replies quietly. Tsunade had informed him on his reentrance into the village. He had not taken the news well.
And then slowly, achingly, he breaks down, as if her words were a trigger to the floodgates. His tears stream down his face in small rivulets, fists balled tightly at his side. He can't stand being so weak, but he cannot help himself. It's been too long since he's felt this torn. She comes over and embraces him as he weeps, knowing that this is the one moment that he would need her.
He falls asleep in her arms that night, and what surprises her most is the fact that he let her hold him.
Three years later, he proposes. She says yes.
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full circle.
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Her firstborn is a boy, cranky and adorable and soft all at once. He has innocent, dark eyes and a giddy laugh. There's something about him that draws others in, the way his eyelashes fluttered when he slept, or the way his lips would tilt up in a smile. He takes after his father in terms of looks, with jet black hair and proud, chubby cheekbones.
They name him Itachi.
"I know that's what people say – you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, you'll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him."
~A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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A/N: Because life goes on even when they're gone.